While everyone is deeply affected and the country shamed with the recent happenings of crime and brutality against women. This has been an ongoing situation in the country. A year or two ago, around the same time of the year, a young girl’s abused body was found dumped in an empty plot in Dwarka, New Delhi, close to where I stayed. She had been sodomised and then strangled. What of the young girls missing from Goa and other tourist spots of India? Then there are crimes against children and the elderly. It is just insane when you start researching the kind of violence that takes place around us and how much hatred is present.
I have always looked at animal welfare workers as being empathetic towards all pain and suffering. Compassion is a curse sometimes as it makes you pick up a lot of suffering and without adequate support, it can pull you to the lowest points of your life.
I feel there is something we can do here which will make the society a better place. We have to be more vocal about stricter laws and zero tolerance of any cruelty and especially cruelty against animals. Quoting excerpts from articles done by PETA, below are some facts that need to be highlighted and the government and policy makers pushed towards taking all cruelty seriously. Crime and criminals do not distinguish between species – only what they can get away with. Since no such serious study or research has been done in India, the facts in the article quotes happenings from the US, however people and tendencies are the same everywhere.
“According to a 1997 study done by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Northeastern University, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes than are individuals without a history of animal abuse.
Many studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology during the last 25 years have demonstrated that violent offenders frequently have childhood and adolescent histories of serious and repeated animal cruelty. The FBI has recognized the connection since the 1970s, when its analysis of the lives of serial killers suggested that most had killed or tortured animals as children. Other research has shown consistent patterns of animal cruelty among perpetrators of more common forms of violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.
If you break it down to its bare essentials:
“Abusing an animal is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend itself.”
“Abusing an animal is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend itself.”
Now break down a human crime, say rape. If we substitute a few pronouns, it’s the SAME THING.
“Rape is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.”
“Rape is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.”
Now try it with, say, domestic abuse such as child abuse or spousal abuse:
“Child abuse is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.”
“Child abuse is a way for a human to find power/joy/fulfillment through the torture of a victim they know cannot defend themselves.”
Do you see the pattern here?
The line separating an animal abuser from someone capable of committing human abuse is much finer than most people care to consider. People abuse animals for the same reasons they abuse people. Some of them will stop with animals, but enough have been proven to continue on to commit violent crimes to people that it’s worth paying attention to.
Virtually every serious violent offender has a history of animal abuse in their past, and since there’s no way to know which animal abuser is going to continue on to commit violent human crimes, they should ALL be taken that seriously. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Allen Brantley was quoted as saying “Animal cruelty… is not a harmless venting of emotion in a healthy individual; this is a warning sign…” It should be looked at as exactly that. Its a clear indicator of psychological issues that can and often DO lead to more violent human crimes.
Dr. Randall Lockwood, who has a doctorate in psychology and is senior vice president for anti-cruelty initiatives and training for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, states “A kid who is abusive to a pet is quite often acting out violence directly experienced or witnessed in the home,” Lockwood said, adding that about one-third of children who are exposed to family violence will act out this violence, often against their own pets.
Those who abuse animals for no obvious reason, Lockwood said, are “budding psychopaths.” They have no empathy and only see the world as what it’s going to do for them.
History is full of high-profile examples of this connection:
•Patrick Sherrill, who killed 14 coworkers at a post office and then shot himself, had a history of stealing local pets and allowing his own dog to attack and mutilate them.
•Earl Kenneth Shriner, who raped, stabbed, and mutilated a 7-year-old boy, had been widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs? rectums and strung up cats.
•Brenda Spencer, who opened fire at a San Diego school, killing two children and injuring nine others, had repeatedly abused cats and dogs, often by setting their tails on fire.
•Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler” who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes in his youth.
•Carroll Edward Cole, executed for five of the 35 murders of which he was accused, said his first act of violence as a child was to strangle a puppy.
•In 1987, three Missouri high school students were charged with the beating death of a classmate. They had histories of repeated acts of animal mutilation starting several years earlier. One confessed that he had killed so many cats he?d lost count. Two brothers who murdered their parents had previously told classmates that they had decapitated a cat.
•Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had impaled dogs? heads, frogs, and cats on sticks.
•Earl Kenneth Shriner, who raped, stabbed, and mutilated a 7-year-old boy, had been widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs? rectums and strung up cats.
•Brenda Spencer, who opened fire at a San Diego school, killing two children and injuring nine others, had repeatedly abused cats and dogs, often by setting their tails on fire.
•Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler” who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes in his youth.
•Carroll Edward Cole, executed for five of the 35 murders of which he was accused, said his first act of violence as a child was to strangle a puppy.
•In 1987, three Missouri high school students were charged with the beating death of a classmate. They had histories of repeated acts of animal mutilation starting several years earlier. One confessed that he had killed so many cats he?d lost count. Two brothers who murdered their parents had previously told classmates that they had decapitated a cat.
•Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had impaled dogs? heads, frogs, and cats on sticks.
More recently, high school killers such as 15-year-old Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Ore., and Luke Woodham, 16, in Pearl, Miss., tortured animals before embarking on shooting sprees. Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot and killed 12 classmates before turning their guns on themselves, bragged about mutilating animals to their friends.”
